We’re happy to bring to you the first episode of  Season 2 of CultureClub, where we catch up with Meena Kumari, Director of HR at Airmeet, a remote-first organization that offers virtual collaboration solutions. Coming from an organization that has been remote even before the pandemic hit, Meena has some valuable insights to share on how the roles of managers are evolving with the changing technological landscape, the advent of new work models, and the changing work population.

Meena brings with her over 13 years of experience in the field of HR and was awarded the Top #HRs100under40 by Jombay. She has a keen interest in Organizational Development, Employee Engagement, Learning & Development, Talent Management, and Talent Acquisition, and has been instrumental in helping start-ups scale from growth to expansion stage.

Meena has also translated her passion for the HR field by founding HR Folks Community where she takes a people-first approach while engaging in conversations around the HR field.

In this videocast, we capture her candid chat with Ketan (Head of People Function, Rentomojo), and Senthil (Founder & CEO, CultureMonkey) where she stresses the need to redefine the roles of managers in keeping with the evolving business landscape.

Meena starts the conversation and immediately grabs our attention by asking a very pertinent question: Are we hiring managers? Or, are we hiring subject experts and pushing them to be managers? Because she implies that the impact of both on employee engagement can be very different.

While HRs may own employee engagement as a function and enable the organization in the direction of engagement, employees look up to their managers for motivation, which makes it important for people in these positions to have people skills - either trained in or hired for these skills.

She further goes on to point out the changes that are happening within a workplace - a more hybrid work model is emerging, the workforce is now a combination of permanent, freelance, and gig workers, and millennials and Gen-Zs with very unique ideologies are part of the workforce. What does this mean for the role of a manager is a question that Meena throws light on, in this episode.

Don’t forget to fill your coffee mugs and enjoy this insightful conversation as you sip on that piping hot coffee.

View the videocast here.

CultureClub is a community initiative by CultureMonkey, for more information on CultureMonkey, visit  www.culturemonkey.io